Could Iran Live Without Assad?

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s high-profile meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on November 23 has triggered speculation that the two sides are weighing some serious policy choices about Syria. The key question, as always, is the fate of Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

There is no doubt that Putin’s visit to Iran was of major import. The Supreme Leader’s Foreign Policy Advisor Alai Akbar Velayati claimed that the Russian president’s meeting with Khamenei was the most important in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, explaining that Putin agreed that “no type of agreement [on Syria] would occur…without coordinating with Iran.”